Testimonial from Happy Customer with a New Turbo Kit

Attention PG Yamaha / Don Pickering -

As a snowmobile performance enthusiast, I have been modifying my
snowmobiles (engines and chassis) ever since made it to the top of
the Renshaw Mountains (McBride) in about 1989. I till remember adding
white plastic paddles to the track, then having to drop & roll
the chain case to clear the big paddles. What a difference it made,
especially after the long tracks (136”) came out! It took about
10 years for the four big snowmobile manufacturers to catch-up and
realize our local market, and then the “rush to the mountains” really
started!

During
that time I was buying the closest thing to a mountain sled, with
the biggest motor I could get. About the same time I started playing
and experimenting with turbo-chargers for my two cycle engines. I
found out this made about 50% more power and lost very little at
altitude. The
biggest problem with adding a turbo to a two cycle engine is that
it produced a lot of heat, which ended up on top of the aluminum
pistons. Although WISECO came out with high silicone aluminum pistons,
they were no match for the heat the turbo threw at them. This took
quite a while to figure out the jetting, and it was not until I put
one on a two stroke Yamaha 600 that came out (I think in 1997) with
electronic ignition and smart carbs, that automatically retarded
the timing to prevent detonation. This proved to be the ultimate “mountain
sled” because of the lightweight two cylinder engine, improved
2” rubber track and TURBO-Power!!

Well
as engines got bigger, tracks got longer and the sleds got heavier,
I moved my Turbo to a 800 twin engine and a new sled. I never did
get it working as well as the old 600 c/c engine because the Turbo
was limited on the volume of air, and could not efficiently fill
the cylinders. I acquired a larger Turbo, but got “horn-swaggled” (the
polite way of saying I got “suckered”) into sending it
back to the States, by a fast talking salesman after they found out
AeroCharger went out of business.

My
apparent mistake really hit home, after being barely above stock
sleds at the time, but I really got spanked when the heavy RX-1 came
out (turbo-charged). A lot of people shied away from this sled because
of the extra weight to carry the 4-stroke, 4-cylinder, 1000 c/c engine.
After a sound “trashing” it became immediately
apparent about the huge advantages of putting a turbo on a 4-stroke
engine! I believe this is where the first application was (aeroplane
engines in the 2nd world war flying at high altitude) on four stroke
engines. Anyway, shortly after peering into the hood & wondering “what
the hell that thing was”, I realized that the 4-stroke
engine was the perfect match because it “sheds” the heat
(fires on every other stroke), and the double power is quite adequately
handled by the modern ignition and cooling systems.

So, upon returning to town the 2-stroke snowmobile was immediately
put up for sale, and I sold both my old AeroChargers back to the
USA (ya, you guys can have all my old stuff now!). I still
laugh when someone sneers when you pull up to the bottom of a big
hill with the “heavy RX-1”!! Then you blow over
the top as they are turning out, a quarter of the way up. The
second thing I quickly realized, the weight is not a consideration
if you have the POWER!! And finally I sure don’t miss buying
race fuel!